New Year Greetings From Indian Innovators Association

 

List of Top 100 Indian Innovations (2023)

 

The yearbook has profiles of innovators, technology trends, innovation merits, patent position, and commercialization status.

https://notionpress.com/read/top-100-indian-innovations-2023

https://www.flipkart.com/top-100-indian-innovations-2023/p/itm95b97050b9c55

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0CLTN58N7?&tag=notionpcom-21

Indian patents 2022

 

WIPO released statistics for 2022.

Indian patent office received 77,068 applications, 38,551 from residents and 38,517 from non-residents, more than Germany, the UK, France, Russia Australia, and Canada but less than China, USA, Japan, and Korea. Patents in force are 1,28,663 with non-residents share at 81.60% and most of them are in force for more than 10 years,

Report: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo-pub-941-2023-en-world-intellectual-property-indicators-2023.pdf

Technologies avialable for transfer from ICMR

 

ICMR listed several technologies ready for transfer.

Example- Personal cooling garment system 

Salient features of the technology:  Personal cooling garment (PCG) has been designed and developed for auxiliary body cooling. The garment is useful for maintaining comfortable microclimate around the human body.  The PCG is a jacket-like enclosure system creates an interior space of microclimate for auxiliary body cooling.  The PCG is attached with a small coolant reservoir that can be clipped on the hip belt for easy carrying.  Re-circulation of the coolant is powered by a small submersible, battery operated pump immerged in the coolant reservoir.  Low temperature of the coolant creates a microclimate condition that promotes heat transfer between the wearer’s body and circulating fluid.  Easy to use and maintain PCG (filled with coolant) is light weight (~0•75 kg). The reservoir bottle and pump accessories had an additional weight of ~1 kg.  Caution is needed if the garment is not frequently used. The coolant needs to be pushed out of the tubing for hygienic reasons. Effective and use time of the garment depend on the inlet temperature of the coolant.  The product has to be tested in the work environment. Validation under process.  Indian Patent application has been filed with application no.- 2746/DEL/2012.  This technology has been developed by NIOH, Ahemdabad (an ICMR Institute)

Details: https://main.icmr.nic.in/technology?title=

INEX India 2023, Goa

 Indian Innovators Association started organizing International Innovation Fair since 2016 in association with global network partners. This year's event held in Goa attracted 100 Indian and global innovators. The yearbook 2023 was also released. Few glimpses:

Top100 IndianInnovations 2023SampleChapter

 

Innovation Yearbook with profiles of Innovators who made it to the Top 100 in the year 2023.

Read the sample chapter here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375030518_Top100_IndianInnovations_2023SampleChapter

Buy online:

https://notionpress.com/read/top-100-indian-innovations-2023

https://amzn.eu/d/9u1T2gL

Global Innovation Index- India card

 

The 2023 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII) takes the pulse of global innovation trends against the background of an economic environment fraught with uncertainty. It reveals the ranking of this year’s most innovative economies in the world amongst 132 economies and localizes the top 100 science and technology innovation clusters.

India's rank is 40 and where does score better?

1. Entrepreneuship Policies and Culture- rank 13

2, Graduates and Science & Engineering- Rank 11

3. Global Corporate R&D Investors- Rank 13

4. QS University Ranking- Rank 22

5. Finance for startup and scale ups- Rank 9

6. Citable Documents H Index - Rank 20

7. Intangible asset Intensity- Rank 8

DBT, India links Exclusive Licensing of Intellectual Property to TRL level

 Department of Biotechnology released DBT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY GUIDELINES 2023.

The policy guidelines tried to answer the long-debated issue- Exclusive licensing of technology vs. non-exclusive? While recognizing the merits of exclusive licensing, an attempt is made to link it TRL level.

5.2. Exclusive licensing 

5.2.a. For research leads in lower TRLs, exclusive licensing may be considered. 

5.2.b. Public interest should be protected with clauses on the availability of the final product in Indian markets at affordable rates, especially for products with the potential for mass deployment. 

5.2.c. Timelines on commercialization should be clearly defined in a licensing agreement. 

5.2.d. Preference to Biotech SMEs and Manufacturing in India. 

5.2.e. Preferred purchase arrangements for start-ups for products developed under government-funded programs. 

5.2.f. A standard licensing agreement framework may be developed by the public institution that would ensure a share of the revenue earned by the licensee to be given to the partnering public institutions for a limited timeframe. 

5.2.g. The license shall be subject to the irrevocable, royalty-free right of the Government of India to practice or to require the licensee to grant sublicenses to responsible applicants, on reasonable terms, when necessary to fulfill the health safety or security needs of the country.

Research Landscape and performance benchmarking in biotechnology

This report gives a glimpse of what is happening in DBT-funded research institutes. Patent analysis:

Between 1997 and 2027 DBT applied for 256 distinct patent families, on the average of 22-24 per year. NII, Delhi is the msost active with 42 of the 256 followed by IGGEB with 27 and CDFC 11, NCCS 10, NBRC 9, RGCB-8

Also read: Ravi, R., Janodia, M.D. University-Industry Technology Transfer in India: a Plausible Model Based on Success Stories from the USA, Japan, and Israel. J Knowl Econ 13, 1692–1713 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-022-00908-z

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13132-022-00908-z

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION RESEARCH IN CHINA AND INDIA: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS FOR THE PERIOD 1991–2015

 This is an important study from Debabrata Chatterjee and Sreevas Sahasranamam from the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, India, and the University of Strathclyde, UK.

ABSTRACT Although substantial literature on the management of technological innovation exists, several scholars argue that much of this research has been rooted in Western contexts, where key assumptions are very different from those in emerging economies. Building on this viewpoint, we investigate the current state of knowledge on technological innovation in two of the largest and fastest-growing emerging economies: China and India. We undertook a bibliometric analysis of author keywords and combined different quantitative approaches – frequency analysis, cluster analysis, and co-word analysis – to review 162 articles on technological innovation published in China and India for the period 1991– 2015. From the analyses, the trends in technological innovation research in the two countries and the dominant themes of discussion were identified. These themes were further classified into eight sub-themes. Our key findings indicate a near absence of research on the management of technological innovation based on India, a limited volume of research on indigenous aspects of innovation, and a lack of theory-building based on these countries’ contexts. Several suggestions for future research are offered based on the gaps identified.

Download the paper here.

Green Hydrogen Standard for India

 The government has notified the Green Hydrogen Standard for India. The standard issued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India outlines the emission thresholds that must be met in order for hydrogen produced to be classified as ‘Green’, i.e., from renewable sources. The scope of the definition encompasses both electrolysis-based and biomass-based hydrogen production methods. After discussions with multiple stakeholders, the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy has decided to define Green Hydrogen as having a well-to-gate emission (i.e., including water treatment, electrolysis, gas purification, drying and compression of hydrogen) of not more than 2 kg CO2 equivalent / kg H2.

The notification specifies that a detailed methodology for measurement, reporting, monitoring, on-site verification, and certification of green hydrogen and its derivatives shall be specified by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy.

Download the notification

From Lexology post:

In U.S., as per the Clean Hydrogen Production Standard proposal, “clean hydrogen” is defined as hydrogen generated with a carbon intensity not exceeding 2 (two) kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalent emitted at the production site per kilogram of hydrogen produced. Although, for the purpose of tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, “qualified clean hydrogen,” refers to hydrogen with a lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions rate no higher than 4 (four) kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalent emitted at the production site per kilogram of hydrogen.

In the EU, a much more liberal definition of green hydrogen has been adopted. The European Commission has set the fossil benchmark at 94 (ninety four) g carbon dioxide-equivalent per megajoule. For hydrogen, this translates to 3.38 (three point three eight) tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions at the production site per tonne of hydrogen produced. Notably, hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels exceeding this limit are not automatically excluded as renewable fuels, yet they cannot contribute to the renewable energy targets of member States.

In the UK, to demonstrate compliance with the low carbon hydrogen standard, producers of low carbon hydrogen must be able to report a green-house gas emissions intensity of 20 (twenty) carbon dioxide equivalents per megajoule of produced hydrogen or less, which is equivalent to 2.4 (two point four) kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions at the production site per kilogram of hydrogen produced.

Draft National Deep Tech Startup Policy (NDTSP)

 National Deep Tech Startup Policy (NDTSP) Consortium, set-up by the Prime Minister's Science, Technology, and Innovation Advisory Council has released the draft national deep tech startup policy (NDTSP) for public consultation. 

The draft NDTSP aims to complement and add value to the existing Startup India programmes, by fostering a conducive ecosystem for deep tech startups to thrive and address their unique and complex challenges. The draft NDTSP captures various new policy instruments and suggests policy changes under the following themes:

1. Nurturing Research, Development & Innovation
2. Strengthening the Intellectual Property Regime
3. Facilitating Access to Funding
4. Enabling Shared Infrastructure and Resource Sharing
5. Creating Conducive Regulations, Standards, and Certifications
6. Attracting Human Resources & Initiating Capacity Building
7. Promoting Procurement & Adoption
8. Ensuring Policy & Program Interlinkages
9. Sustaining Deep Tech Startups

The draft NDSTP is available here.

We are preparing a response for this draft NDTSP. In this regard, we are requesting your feedback on this draft policy by August 31, 2023. 

Kindly write to garima@nasscom.in and tejasvi@nasscom.in. 

A MAJORITY OF BILLION-DOLLAR STARTUPS HAVE AN IMMIGRANT FOUNDER-USA

Immigrants take away jobs or create jobs???

More than half (319 of 582, or 55%) of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion or more have at least one immigrant founder. Immigrant entrepreneurs in U.S. billion-dollar startups come from diverse backgrounds, hailing from 57 countries. India, with 66 companies, is the leading country of origin for the immigrant founders of U.S. billion-dollar companies. Immigrants from Israel founded the second-most billion-dollar companies with 54, followed by the United Kingdom (27), Canada (22), China (21), France (18), Germany (15), Russia (11), Ukraine (10), Iran (8), Australia (7), Romania (6), Italy (6), Poland (6), Nigeria (6), South Korea (5), New Zealand (5), Pakistan (5) Argentina (5), Brazil (5), Spain (4), Portugal (4), Denmark (4) and several other countries.

Photo source: https://research.ucdavis.edu/migration-research-cluster/

Report: https://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-BILLION-DOLLAR-STARTUPS.NFAP-Policy-Brief.2022.pdf

Green Credit Programme introduced by Government of India

 The Central Government has now proposed a notification for ‘draft Green Credit Programme Implementation Rules 2023’ for the information of the public .

‘Green Credit’ means a singular unit of an incentive provided for a specified activity, delivering a positive impact on the environment;

Sectors identified for the Programme with respective objectives are as follows:

i. Tree Plantation-based Green Credit: To promote activities for increasing the green cover across the country through tree plantation and related activities. 

ii. Water-based Green Credit: To promote water conservation, water harvesting and water use efficiency/savings, including treatment and reuse of wastewater. 

iii. Sustainable Agriculture based Green Credit: To promote natural and regenerative agricultural practices and land restoration to improve productivity, soil health and nutritional value of food produced. 

iv. Waste Management based Green Credit: To promote sustainable and improved practices for waste management, including collection, segregation and treatment.

 v. Air Pollution Reduction based Green Credit: To promote measures for reducing air pollution and other pollution abatement activities. 

vi. Mangrove Conservation and Restoration based Green Credit: To promote measures for conservation and restoration of mangroves. 

vii. Ecomark based Green Credit: To encourage manufacturers to obtain Ecomark label for their goods and services. 

viii. Sustainable building and infrastructure based Green Credit: To encourage the construction of buildings and other infrastructure using sustainable technologies and materials.

Download:  https://egazette.gov.in/WriteReadData/2023/246825.pdf

Can India come with scaled AI Generative Startup

The debate started with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman statement in a Q&A that India's AI Startup Potential "Totally Hopeless'. NASSCOM has come with this report to give current status on India startups in this space. 

Indian generative AI startup ecosystem has expanded rapidly since 2021, more than doubling in count, with over $475 Mn funding in the last 2 years. Majority of these Indian startups offer generative AI-native solutions, built in-house. However, a majority of them lack adequate funding. Unlocking the full potential of generative AI for India, and from India for the world, will not only require rigorous assessment of sustainable whitespace opportunities in various sectors, but will also require innovative thinking towardsinviting patient capital and facilitating compute capabilities at scale.

Indo-U.S. Global Challenge Institutes

 Earlier this year, AAU formed the Task Force on Expanding United States-India University Partnerships. The objective of the Task Force has been to specifically explore how the United States can work with institutions and institutional leaders in India to expand bilateral research and higher education partnerships as part of a pathway toward a strategic strengthening of the U.S.-India relationship.

Preliminary Recommendations

RECOMMENDATION #1: Establish New Joint U.S.-India Institutes to Address Societal and Scientific Grand Challenges.

RECOMMENDATION #2: Scale Up Student-Based Research Collaboration and Exchanges to Address Societal Challenges.

RECOMMENDATION #3: Expand Opportunities for Internships and Apprenticeships

RECOMMENDATION #4: Catalyze Collaborative Research with Targeted Faculty Support

 RECOMMENDATION #5: Broaden Participation in GIAN, VAJRA, and Other Existing Programs.

RECOMMENDATION #6: Host Indian Researchers at Core Facilities.

RECOMMENDATION #7: Accelerate Knowledge Transfer from Lab to Marketplace

RECOMMENDATION #8: Build the “Front Doors” with Coordinated Nationwide International Education Strategies in Both Countries

RECOMMENDATION #9: Surge Staffing Resources to Rapidly Process Visas Applications

Download- https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/Education-Community-Impact/International-Partnerships/India%20Task%20Force%20Preliminary%20Report.pdf

Nominations invited for Innovation Yearbook 2023

 

Identifying 4IR technologies using patent data

 The 4IR and the transformations it entails, mainly in the industrial manufacturing sector, were put into vogue since the presentation of the German industrial strategy plan entitled “Industrie 4.0” at the Hanover Fair in 2011 by a group of researchers from the Research Union EconomyScience of the German Ministry of Education and Research. Essentially, the “Industrie 4.0” plan proposes a way of industrialization based on the introduction of the CPS into manufacturing production and hence, establishing a watershed with previous technological revolutions empowered by mechanization, electricity and ICT with the main aim to improve German domestic and global manufacturing competitiveness through “smart factory”. CPS are formally defined as “transformative technologies for managing interconnected systems between its physical assets and the computational capabilities”.

This document provides a methodological procedure to identify the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies using patent data. Attempts to distinguish these technologies  have frequently relied on the European Patent Office (2017, 2020a) methods or have mainly leaned on technical codes and keyword classifications.

Download report: https://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2023/wp2023-023.pdf

Carbon Capture technologies- India report from NITI Aayog

 This report explains that CCUS will play an essential role in meeting India’s global commitments of reducing CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050 and achieving net zero by 2070.

Extract:

There are different categories and types of commercial-scale carbon capture technologies and their suitability or appropriateness for different applications/sectors depends on the typical CO2 gas stream composition: 

a. Chemical solvent-based CO2 capture technologies: preferred when dealing with gas streams that are lean in CO2 and have relatively lower pressures, such as flue gas streams from power plants, BF gases in steel plants, gas streams in refineries or chemicals plants. The cost and availability of steam is also a key factor as regenerating the solvent requires large quantities of steam. 

\b. Physical solvent-based CO2 capture technologies: these work well on gas streams with relatively higher CO2 concentration and pressure, such as pre-combustion capture in the case of gasification projects. 

c. Adsorption-based CO2 capture: suitable for gas streams with moderate to high pressure and moderate CO2 concentration such as SMR flue gas or BF gas. 

d. Cryogenic CO2 capture: preferred in cases where the cost of power is low. This technology can be applied for carbon capture from the PSA tail gas of Steam Methane Reforming Units (for producing H2 ) and provides a unique advantage of increasing the yield/recovery of hydrogen production from the same quantity of feedstock (natural gas).

Download report: 

https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2022-12/CCUS-Report.pdf

WIPO patent landscape report- graphite and its applications

This Patent Landscape Report on Graphite and its Applications was prepared following a related request from Sri Lanka. This publication was prepared under the stewardship of Marco Alemán (Assistant Director General, IP and Innovation Ecosystems Sector), under the direction of Alejandro Roca Campañá (Senior Director, Technology and Innovation Support Division) and Andrew Czajkowski (Director, Technology and Innovation Support Division), with the generous financial support by Funds-In-Trust Japan Industrial Property Global provided by the Japan Patent Office. The report was prepared by a project team initially led by Irene Kitsara (IP Information Officer, Technology and Innovation Support Division) and then by Lakshmi Supriya (Patent Analytics Officer, Technology and Innovation Support Division), members from the patent analytics team of IPOS International comprising Alfred Yip (Director, Patent Search, Examination and Analytics), Huang Jinquan (Head, Patent Analytics), Sun Ting (Senior Analyst) and Pan Shanshan (Analyst), Björn Jürgens (Consultant), Craig Dsouza (Young Expert Professional, Technology and Innovation Support Division).

Conclusion:

The wide range of graphite applications has stemmed from an intensive research and development effort worldwide. Patent filings for graphite-related technologies have originated from over 60 countries across every region. However, although this suggests graphite innovation is global, it is actually the case that graphite-related patent families originate predominantly from just a few countries. Specifically, the top five applicant origins are China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States and the Russian Federation. Together, they account for the vast majority (95 percent) of global patenting output. China is dominant among the top five applicant origins, responsible for four in every five graphite patent families filed worldwide in the last decade. It is most active in the exploitation of flake graphite, being home to the world’s second-largest reserve of natural graphite and the primary supplier of flake graphite to the global market. Artificial graphite, on the other hand, is a wellexplored alternative to natural graphite, especially in countries without a rich natural reserve, such the Republic of Korea. Battery applications were the key driver of graphite technologies, accounting for 10–15 percent of global graphite production. Among all graphite uses and products, graphite for battery applications is the one that has attracted the most intensive patent filing, with over 8,000 patent applications filed from 2012 to 2021. Such a high level of patenting activity is expected to continue, as the global effort to fight climate change intensifies. In particular, the explosive market growth of EVs and large-scale energy storage will demand more graphite innovations; for example, novel graphite-based anode solutions with greater energy density and better performance. The two other application areas that recorded intense patent activity were ceramics and heat dissipation. Ceramic applications have remained an active patenting field, attributable to their indispensable role in refractory applications. In addition, novel graphite-filled ceramic materials and composites have been explored for a broad range of uses, including in automotive and power machinery applications. Graphite for heat dissipation is one of the few areas where the rest of the world has shown a comparable patenting output to China, with substantial contributions coming from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States and Taiwan Province of China. As the level of power dissipation has increased owing to a continual performance improvement in electronics, research has shifted toward novel graphite-based compositions and microstructures for better heat dissipation performance.

Download report: 

https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo-pub-1083-en-patent-landscape-report-graphite-and-its-applications.pdf

European Commission’s Draft Standard Essential Patents Regulation

 The draft regulation foresees (1) the establishment and maintenance of an electronic register and database for SEPs; (2) the establishment and administration of a system for assessing the essentiality of SEPs; (3) the creation and administration of a process for FRAND determination and (4) the administration of a system for an aggregate royalty rate determination. All of this is to be administered by the EUIPO, the European Union Intellectual Property Office.

Global FRAND rate setting- UK and China moved for an early mover advantage, now EU wants to step in.

Download report:  https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/publications/com2023232-proposal-regulation-standard-essential-patents_en

National Manufacturing Innovation Survey 2021- India

 

The 3-year effort produced 6 reports and a comprehensive overivew is captured in the #NMIS 'Summary for Policymakers'. Download reports: https://lnkd.in/gpa8weDZ

Conclusions:

• Innovation performance (output) lags behind presence of enablers and absence of barriers (input)
• Presence of enablers has greater impact on performance than the absence of barriers
• Innovation is beneficial to business success in manufacturing
• At least 70 percent of the firms are innovation-inactive
• Aspiration for topline growth drives innovation, but it could also be at odds with innovation 
• Activities exclusively focused on innovation correlate to higher innovation success 
• Firms with more than basic innovation capabilities demonstrate higher success in innovation.
•  Basic ecosystem enablers are essential but insufficient on their own to help firms increase their ability to innovate.
• Finance is the most cited barrier to innovation in Indian manufacturing
• Frequencies of innovation barriers differ by region in India

The report recommended  ‘Innovate to Make in India’ as a manufacturing innovation strategy'. The survey findings demonstrate that despite proven business benefits, manufacturing firms showed high-risk aversion and limited entrepreneurial appetite to engage with innovation. Predominantly, it was observed that firms were responding to the immediate demands in the market, instead of competing for new products that are needed to compete in the future. In this context, a long-term manufacturing innovation strategy is critically urgent. Thus, to make innovation a priority for manufacturing firms, a concrete step forward would be to complement the ‘Make in India’ with an “Innovate to Make in India” strategy. This may then include broad based awareness, promotional measures and investment incentives, along with sectoral sub-strategies with concrete innovation targets or roadmaps.

Report: http://www.nstmis-dst.org/NMIS/assets/pdf/Assessment%20of%20Firm-Level%20Innovation%20in%20Indian%20Manufacturing.pdf

India releases Water Body census

 Highlights:

• The photograph of the water bodies along with the latitude and longitude was captured by a mobile app developed for this purpose.  
• 24,24,540 water bodies have been enumerated in the country, out of which 97.1% (23,55,055) are in rural areas and only 2.9% (69,485) are in urban areas. 
• 59.5% (14,42,993) of water bodies are ponds, followed by tanks (15.7%, i.e 3,81,805), reservoirs (12.1%, i.e 2,92,280), Water conservation schemes/percolation tanks/check dams (9.3%, i.e 2,26,217), lakes (0.9%, i.e 22,361) and others (2.5%, i.e 58,884).
• West Bengal has highest number of ponds & reservoirs, whereas Andhra Pradesh has highest number of tanks, Tamil Nadu has highest number of lakes and Maharashtra is the leading state for water conservation scheme. 
• A major proportion of water bodies i.e., 83.7% (20,30,040) are in use whereas remaining 16.3% (3,94,500) are not in use on account of drying up, construction, siltation, destroyed beyond repair, salinity and other reasons. 
• Most of the water bodies are used in pisciculture, followed by irrigation, ground water recharge and domestic/drinking purpose. 

Read the report: https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s3a70dc40477bc2adceef4d2c90f47eb82/uploads/2023/04/2023040672.pdf

Indian Space Policy 2023

 The policy outlines scope for Non Government Entities:

NGEs would be encouraged to: 1. offer national and international space-based communication services, through self-owned or procured or leased GSO/NGSO communication satellites. 2. establish and operate ground facilities for space objects operations, such as TT&C Earth Stations and Satellite Control Centres (SCCs). 3. use Indian Orbital Resources and/or Non-Indian Orbital Resources to establish space objects for communication services over India and outside India. 4. make new ITU filings through the WPC/DOT to acquire Orbital Resources. NGEs are free to make ITU filings through non-Indian administrations also. 5. establish and operate remote sensing satellite systems within and outside India through selfowned or procured or leased satellites. 6. disseminate satellite-based remote sensing data, as well as applications based on such data, in India and/or outside. 7. develop and commercialise technologies and applications for enhancing and augmenting the satellite navigation, communication and remote-sensing developed and provided by the Government. 8. manufacture and operate space transportation systems, including launch vehicles, shuttles, etc., as well as design and develop reusable, recoverable and reconfigurable technologies and systems for space transportation. 9. establish and operate launch infrastructure. 10. develop space situational awareness capabilities for enhancing observation, modelling and analysis. 11. undertake research, innovation and technology development for long-term sustainability of space activities. 12. provide end-to-end services for safe operations and maintenance in space. 13. engage in the commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource. Any NGE engaged in such process shall be entitled to possess, own, transport, use, and sell any such asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of India. 14. undertake any other IN-SPACe prescribed commercial space activity. 

Source:https://www.isro.gov.in/media_isro/pdf/IndianSpacePolicy2023.pdf

 

Corporate innovation and Board Directors qualification- paper about IITian Directors from India

 Indian industry spending on R&D and Innovation is low. Is risk taking related to Board Directors qualification? If majority of board members have degrees from IITs, does that improve innovation quotient? This paper addresses this issue.

Findings- 

We could infer from this outcome that simply having an IIT-Bachelor’s degree is important. However, to ignite the innovation potential of a firm and put maximum effort towards it, the directors would require a research degree like PhDs. Research degree over IIT-Bachelor’s would unlock those IIT bachelor directors' research mindset and abilities and provide the research aptitude/experience to carry out R&D. 

Read:  https://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2023/wp2023-014.pdf

JUST ASPIRE - Inspiring Story of the Father of Indian Hardware, Ajai Chowdhry

Indian farmers adoption of farming practices to mitigate climate change

 Climate change is adversely affecting the Indian agricultural sector. Farmers’ perceptions of and adaptation to the rapidly changing climatic conditions are considered crucial policy measures to combat these adversities. In this context, the present study systematically reviews the literature on farmers’ perception and adaptation in India, drawing mainly from Scopus and Web of Science. Results show that majority of the Indian farmers have perceived a rise in temperature, erratic and decreased rainfall which is consistent with the meteorological data. Indian farmers seem to have adopted a wide range of adaptation measures that are mostly incremental and systemic. Transformational adaptations in the form of substantial changes in land use, resource and labor allocations, occupational pattern, and cropping systems are also increasingly found to be adopted by farmers. However, the literature does not substantially confirm that farmers’ adaptation measures result from their perception of climate change. Lack of access to sufficient information and adequate credit at the right time, household income, farm size, gender, and resource endowment, among others, frequently influences the adoption of adaptation measures. To avoid maladaptive outcomes and achieve long-term sustainability, the study suggests a need for large-scale investments in the Indian farming sector in general and building farmers’ capacity in particular. In addition, adopting an integrated approach for assessing farmers’ perception of and adaptation to changing climatic conditions and their outcomes is essential for effective policymaking towards achieving food security and farmers’ wellbeing.

Download paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667010022001007

India Government notifies rules on online gaming.

 

These amendments layout a comprehensive framework for Online Gaming Eco-system and also deals with Fact checking related to online content pertaining to Government. These rules address the twin challenges of catalyzing and expanding online gaming innovation and at the same time protecting citizens from illegal betting and wagering online. Rules will be catalyst for expanding innovation, while banning/prohibiting wagering on outcome of games and betting. Rules will ensure that Online games or sites that involve wagering will be banned completely including advertising or any time of presence. Industry participating SROs will be core of the enabling framework which will certify permissible Online games. Stakeholder participative SROs to determine permissible online games; Safety of Gamers including Children to be addressed. Under the Rules, MEITY to also notify agency to factcheck false & misleading information related to Govt business.

Download notification.

RICH Impact report (2022)

 

RICH (Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad) is a Government of Telangana initiative and the Hyderabad Science & Technology Cluster under the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, RICH serves as a strategic convenor, fostering collaboration among academic & research institutions, industry, entrepreneurs, start-ups to enable transformation of scientific research into impactful solutions that generate jobs, wealth and social good. RICH works in three verticals - Food and Agriculture, Lifesciences, and Sustainability. To date, RICH have collaborated with over 250 start-ups and established a network of more than 30 R&D organisations to support start-ups. It is also part of a thriving ecosystem that includes over 75 incubators and accelerators in Telangana.

Download impact report:

https://rich.telangana.gov.in/assets/pdfs/Impact-Reports/RICHC_Impact_Report_Jan_2020-2022.pdf

who is leading the critical technology race?

ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: the global race for future power – can be found on ASPI’s website here. 

ASPI research reveals that China has built the foundations to position itself as the world’s leading science and technology superpower, by establishing a sometimes stunning lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains. China’s global lead extends to 37 out of 44 technologies that ASPI is now tracking, covering  a range of crucial technology fields spanning defence, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials and key quantum technology areas. The Critical Tech Tracker shows that, for some technologies, all of the world’s top 10 leading research institutions are based in China and are collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country (most often the US). China’s technology lead is a product of deliberate design and long-term policy planning, as repeatedly outlined by Xi Jinping and his predecessors. We also see China’s efforts being bolstered through talent and knowledge import: one-fifth of its high-impact papers are being authored by researchers with postgraduate training in a Five-Eyes country.

The US comes second in the majority of the 44 technologies examined in the Critical Tech Tracker. The US currently leads in areas such as high performance computing, quantum computing and vaccines. Our dataset reveals that there’s a large gap between China and the US, as the leading two countries, and everyone else. The data then indicates a small, second-tier group of countries led by India and the UK: other countries that regularly appear in this group—in many technological fields—include South Korea, Germany, Australia, Italy, and less often, Japan.

Macroeconomic Effects of Public R&D-IIPP

Abstract: The direct public funding of R&D investment to stimulate technological innovation has a strong theoretical case and has gained renewed attention in the recent policy debate as a way to address the long-term challenges of modern society such as pandemics, climate change, and the transition to a low-carbon economy. We estimate the dynamic macroeconomic effects of government R&D investment and we find that it is very effective in fostering the total national innovation effort, crowding in private R&D investment, and in raising aggregate output in the long run. We also find that the public stimulus goes beyond private R&D activities and involves a very strong expansion of overall economic activity since the early periods. Finally, we uncover a strong positive impact of the private sector’s anticipation of public R&D spending, which can be interpreted as a confirmation of the importance of managing expectations to reduce the uncertainty inherent to R&D activities.

Paper: De Lipsis, V., Deleidi, M., Mazzucato, M. and Agnolucci, P. (2023) Macroeconomic Effects of Public R&D. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Working Paper Series (IIPP WP 2023-02). https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/wp2023-02.

IIT Bombay R&D report 2022

 IITB is India's premier academic institute. Read the IRCC publication highlighting R&D status.